Category Archives: baseball cards

Topps has been a disappointment regarding quality in-game action photos of Twins players in which the exact play captured by the photo can actually be identified. We’ve had lots of great baseball card photos in the past to work with (we’ve been doing this for over seven years!), but not recently.

On a whim, I chose a card of Brian Dozier from 2018 Topps series 1; while it does I nice job of capturing a play in the field, I didn’t harbor hope that the gang at WGOM could uniquely identify it:2018 Topps #130 Brian Dozier

First off, the visible clues:
1) It’s a day game.
2) With this being Series 1, the photo is most certainly from a 2017 game.
2) A play at third, quite possibly a triple given the arm covering and helmet.
3) Most likely Target Field, given the home white uniform and the location of the distance marker on the outfield wall.

A lot of the discussion centered around the visiting team’s uniform, particularly the dark top and the single stripe on the gray pants:
– there are several teams who have a uniform variant that at least somewhat resembles that of the baseball card: Indians, Mariners, Padres, Brewers, etc.
– Dozier runs the bases with helmet and arm protection, at least some of the time, so he isn’t necessarily advancing to third base on his own at bat.

Given the above and some digging through Baseball Reference website, it was determined that this play was the sixth pitch in the bottom of the first of this game against the Mariners on June 15th. Dozier opened the home half of the first inning with a double to right, and the play captured here was his advance to third on a wild pitch to Eduardo Escobar, Kyle Seager being the third baseman in the photo. Escobar subsequently homered, so he could have taken it easy on second base and avoided the faceplant (see photos below).

The Twins won the game 6-2 on a well-pitched outing from Jose Berrios, and Dozier went 1-for-3 with a BB and HBP, scoring once. Chris Gimenez homered twice in this game, which is much rarer than games in which he ended up pitching.

In my pursuit of certified Twins baseball card autographs, every now and then I find non-player cards (TC the mascot, scout Mark Wilson) and even less frequently, ones that are reasonably priced. Recently I found two, and along with a card of prospect Brent Rooker that now makes 224 different Twins players people.

I’ve been very remiss when it comes to revisiting some of the gang of card collecting bloggers, and decided to remedy that a bit. I noticed that there were a few Twins I needed on the trade page at Nachos Grande, and interrupted Chris’ Gint-a-Cuffs posts to put together a trade with him. It had been over five years since our last trade (?!) which does not really seem possible.

You can tell that someone went to a lot of work looking through their cards by the variety of cards in the trade, and besides the handful of Twins A&G minis from his trade page, here are some examples of what else he found:

Meanwhile, I took his wantlist webpage and visited the friendly neighborhood LCS to roust up some cards he was looking for — scavenger hunt! It was good to get back to my roots, so to speak, and flip a trade with a blogger instead of off of a board like The Bench. Thanks for the swap, Chris!

As stated in my last post, one of my baseball card collecting goals is to try and get one (certified) autographed Twins card of as many Twins ballplayers that I can. Since then, I now have an additional 221st different ballplayer.

Earl Battey is one of the autograph cards I’d been watching for for a while now. He does not have many certified AU cards, and most of those are the “cut auto” type, where his signature on a previous item (letter, contract, check, etc) is cut to size and embedded into a baseball card. The one I finally nabbed was one of these:

2006 Upper Deck SP Legendary Cuts When It Was a Game #WGC-EB Earl Battey [16/25] (auto)

One of my goals is to try and get one (certified) autograph Twins card of as many Twins ballplayers that I can. I have 220 different ballplayers with the most recent one.

I had a gift card for a spot reward from work that I was hoping to turn around into a Kirby Puckett AU card, but the price for his cards are out the roof. There are 25 different Twins ballplayers that I know of with certified AU cards that I don’t have — some of them are cut autos of deceased players (Bob Allison, Earl Battey, Zoilo Versalles) which are difficult to find; some are Real One cards of past ballplayers from Heritage sets, others are just recent prospects whose AU cards are overpriced right now. And then there’s Dave Winfield.

There are autographed cards of Dave Winfield out there, but I only know of one which showed him in a Twins uniform. That finally changed last year when Topps included him in the Dynasty set with several autographed cards all showing him as a Twins player. I latched onto one of those that was uncirculated and a low serial number that included a slick jersey patch as well, and got it at a reasonable price.

When it comes to looking for cards to trade and throwing an exchange package together, it doesn’t get any easier than with Good Trading Buddy™ BobFranklin at baseballcardz.com. Mark at my LCS knows to set aside any non-standard Braves and Phillies, and if they’re ones that Bob can use, I pick them up and add them to his pile. Not sure where Bob gets his Twins, but he’s always got some good stuff, including the odd AU or GU cards. When our respective stacks get to critical mass, they get bundled up and sent on their way. Thanks again for the trade, Bob!

It’d been so long since I traded with Spiff (almost seven years?!) that when we made a trade at The Bench and he pointed out that we’d traded before in the past, I had to do a little research. Sure enough, I’ve done business with the proprietor of the Texas Rangers Cards blog twice. Really, shame on me for not visiting some of the other card collecting bloggers more often.

With our PWE trade, Spiff sent an exemplary package; besides the three Holiday Topps cards I needed, he used in a recycled penny sleeve with a ridiculously high price sticker still on it, within a recycled yellowed top loader (one with scotch tape residue is also considered acceptable), and masking tape instead of scotch tape sealing the top. I personally use blue painters tape, but either way, it leaves the toploader in great shape to turn around on another trade, unlike the gummy transparent stuff. Well done, Spiff!